Meanwhile, adding to its portfolio of East African investments, Fanisi Capital isspending $6 million to take a significant minority position in Arusha-based Kijenge Animal Products. This latest deal is the eighth transaction for the $50 million Kenya-based fund. And the IFC is backing Alcazar Energy, an independent renewable energy power developer and producer that was formed in early 2014, with $25 million in equity to help it develop wind and solar plants in the MENA region.

Staying with the renewable energy sector, Greenstone Equity Partners, one of the Middle East’s largest fund placement firms, is working with TIMU Energy Holdings, the joint venture collaboration between infrastructure investor Harith General Partnersand renewable energy investment firm Jones Pohl, to raise capital from GCC investors for clean energy and natural gas power projects on the continent. The fund is seeking between $20 million and $25 million for early stage investments, and currently has 7 potential projects in 5 African countries in its pipeline.

In other fundraising news, the IFC featured in the largest fundraising announcement of the week as it was joined by the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development, the Arab Investment Company and the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation in committing to invest a total of $125 million in the IFC’s MENA Fund. The fund will focus primarily providing private companies in the infrastructure, financial services and manufacturing sectors with growth equity capital in a bid to spur employment and economic development in the region.

Cupric Canyon Partners announced that it plans to spend $200 million to bring a new copper-silver mine in Botswana into production. In mid-June, the Barclays Capital-backed private equity firm had bid $35 million to acquire Discovery Copper Botswana out of liquidation, whose mothballed Boseto mining assets are located approximately 30 kms away from the site of the new mine. It’s anticipated that once it is up and running, the mine will produce 50,000 tonnes of copper and 1.8 million ounces of silver annually, once it starts shipping to the market in 2018.